IRIS System Requirements

Before installing the latest version of the IRIS Accountancy Suite Software, please ensure that your platform is supported below; our supported platforms now follow that of the Microsoft Lifecycle Policy.

NOTE: Products that are no longer supported by Microsoft Lifecycle Policy, including their extended support period, will no longer be supported by the IRIS Accountancy Suite.
Please ensure that you always have the latest service packs installed as these can also affect the supported lifespan of your given platform which is detailed further in the Microsoft Policy.

Disclaimer

• IRIS cannot guarantee that the latest version of its software will install successfully or perform as designed on a platform that is no longer supported.
• Unsupported platforms no longer receive security updates. Running IRIS software on unsupported platforms is done at your own risk.
• IRIS does not recommend the use of a wireless connection when running the IRIS Accountancy Suite software from a central server on the network. Any troubleshooting needed will require a wired Ethernet connection.
• Using IRIS over a VPN connection without connecting to a Terminal Server is unsupported and IRIS offers no guarantees that it will work.
• Running the Application, SQL Server, and Exchange on the same server while possible, is not recommended as it may impact on the performance of IRIS Accountancy Suite software and cause instability.
• Certain features of IRIS Accountancy Suite, notably Filing by Internet (HMRC and Companies House), licensing and online technical support assistance require a broadband internet connection.

Is my product still in support?

The Microsoft Platform that is, Operating System/s, SQL Server version and Office products used to install and run IRIS software, are now only supported if they conform with the Microsoft Lifecycle Policy; please see the overview here.

Microsoft provides a search tool allowing customers to find and view the life cycle information relating to any Microsoft product.  It can be accessed here.

The following links provide information on products that will or have reached their end of support in the given year:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/end-of-support/end-of-support-2023
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/end-of-support/end-of-support-2024
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/end-of-support/end-of-support-2025
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/end-of-support/end-of-support-2026

Click the links below to jump to a section:

Hardware requirements
Supported platforms
Software requirements
Anti-virus and Firewall protection
Virtual environments

Hardware requirements

The requirements below are a guide; a minimum specification for running IRIS on a dedicated server with 1-3 users.
Important: The number of applications running on the server and users you have on the system, will affect performance.

Note: We are happy to provide advice on this subject; however, we recommend that you speak to your IT service provider to ensure you have sufficient hardware to run your practice.

Supported platforms

Where supported by Microsoft:

• Microsoft Windows Desktop
• Microsoft Windows Server
• Microsoft SQL Server

Software Requirements

Where supported by Microsoft:

• Microsoft .NET 4.8 (minimum)
• Microsoft C++ runtime 2015 onwards
• TLS 1.2
• Microsoft Office / Microsoft 365

Anti-Virus and Firewall protection

Some Anti-Virus software or Firewall protection may prevent successful installations of IRIS software and have a detrimental effect on the performance of the software. In some cases, the anti-virus or firewall software may need disabling or the IRIS directory excluding.
If you require assistance with this, please contact your anti-virus or security system software supplier.

To address Windows Firewall blocking access, see the following articles:

• How to determine if you are using a Static/Dynamic Port – IAS-6218
• How to configure Windows Firewall for TCP ports – IAS-6221
• How to configure Windows Firewall for UDP Port 1434 – IAS-5219

Virtual environments

We test our products in virtual environments including Hyper-V and Terminal Services along with virtualised hardware i.e. Server/Terminal Server(s)/configuration clusters.
Remote access to PCs, Servers and Terminal Servers are tested via Microsoft’s Remote Desktop Connection on all supported platforms.
Our hosting offering IRIS Anywhere, runs in a Microsoft Azure environment.

NOTE: The IRIS Accountancy Suite software is not currently supported on the Microsoft Azure SQL (PaaS) platform.

To provide optimum performance in a virtualised cluster, our recommended setup is to have the Application + Data Folder, SQL Database and Terminal Server(s) on separate virtual machines. We suggest running 8-15 users per Terminal Server depending on the configuration.

We recommend the SQL server having 8 cores with at least 16GB RAM, with the number of tempdb files matching the number of cores. Storage should be split into 3 disk partitions/volumes for OS, SQL DB and SQL logs,
We do not specifically test against the following virtualised environments; many customers have stated that they use them without problem:

• Citrix
• VMWare
• Remote Apps

If you do come across an issue, we will try and help you narrow down the area in the virtual environment that is causing the problem but do not guarantee resolution in any untested platforms.